noticing joy on the surface of simple things … the evidence of holiness happening in the daily grind.

At some point, a countdown has to happen. Today seems like a good starting line. Next Wednesday, October 24, 2012, JR and I will begin the traveling part of our adventure. In case you are just tuning in, I will back up and fill in some details.

JR and I have been married for 26 years. Last year in Hawaii, we renewed our vows on a sunset beach with our kids and my parents as witnesses. I suppose all that romance and the sounds and smells of the ocean wooed me into making promises to go for round two of another 25 years. That would have included a comment that went something like ” I will go where you go; your people will be my people.” Alright, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but when JR told me late spring that he was considering applying for a position that could potentially move us to Florida, I DID say, that I would go with him wherever he goes. The interview process, the waiting, the praying all led up to the countdown that begins today.

JR got a new position & promotion with The GEO Group, the new parent company of BI where JR has faithfully shown up for work the past 20 years.

We are selling our home in Niwot Colorado where we have lived for 11 years (next door on both sides to AWESOME neighbors), and moving to a temporary dwelling in Boca Raton Florida. Until of course, we find something to rent for a year. We plan on looking around, finding great restaurants, discovering a healthy faith community, falling in like, at least, with a neighborhood before settling into our next mortgage.

My father in law wisely pointed out that it is one thing to talk about moving and change and adventure over a cocktail months before it happens. It is a completely different thing when you are starting to count down the days to launch. Why yes it is. How right you are Bob. The giant seems A Lot larger close up. I try to keep reminding myself that adventures are not only fun and exciting. They also include challenge, uncertainty, and often moments of wanting to chicken out all together and take back everything I ever said about “going where you go JR.”

What was I thinking?!

“Freak out moments” are approved, so says my husband, as long as we are not having them at the same time. Someone has to keep their feet on the ground, pointed in forward movement, holding tightly to the hand of the one digging their feet in the familiar dirt.

The day he accepted the offer from GEO – the offer for change, growth, stretching, new opportunities – I decided to put the whole idea and reality in the “adventure bucket”. It is a choice to face change and the unknown; letting go and moving on; grieving loss and embracing new with an attitude of adventure.

Adventure: ‘to take the chance of a bold, risky, exciting undertaking of unknown outcome.’

See, it’s that unknown part that keeps tripping the freak out factor.

No one said you can’t trip on adventure. So here’s to tripping forward, to loading Calvin and Pekoe into the RV and setting off onto the unknown roads, towards the unknown places, and meeting the yet unknown people in Florida.

Twice in my life I’ve moved from one state to another – California to South Dakota, South Dakota to Colorado. I remember the leaving days. I don’t remember the arrival days but I do know that each time we landed in our new country there was something wonderful, someone (s) wonderful waiting to happen and be known. I wouldn’t change a thing…I lie. I would change moving from CA to SD inJanuary.

No more cocktail conversations. Its time to lace up my moving shoes, figure out how to plug-in and steady a crock pot in the moving RV, finish cancelling services at our Paiute house, give people a forwarding address, and watch the Grabel packers and movers take our stuff away in boxes.

Like this:

Not being the most savvy technical type, I have tolerated the use of email, cell phones, texting.

Until my girls went to college. College in Michigan, which is a long way from Colorado.

I now can honestly say, I Love Technology. Skype in particular is my favorite. It connects us – not just with words, not just with voices, but with our persons even hundreds of miles away. Years ago, I really did think that I would hate having a phone where you could see someone when you are talking. I mean, do you always look good, even decent, when you are on the phone? A phone with a view seemed possible for the Jetsons, not for the DeGroots. Well how crazy is the techno world now?

Lauren and Lyndsay had some busy weeks recently which reduced the amount of communication with us. During this time they celebrated their “leaving teen” birthday, yet very little time to talk. Last Saturday there was finally time for skype – first with Lauren, then with Lyndsay. I went to bed that night thinking…my girls are some kind of wonderful; technology is some kind of wonderful too. I feel connected with these people I love after I talk with them – almost in person.

JR and I are moving to Florida next week. It is over 2000 miles from where we’ve called home for nearly 30 years (myself) and nearly 40 years (JR). We’ve been blessed to meet and know and love a bunch of people here in Colorado. We hope you visit us as we will live near the warm ocean, in warm weather, with just as many sunny days as Colorado.

Don’t all visit at once please.

In between time, email, call, write, text, and if you don’t have one – please get yourself signed up for a skype account. We can stay connected – almost in person. You don’t even have to be savvy in the technological sense, and I think that once you skype with us (when we are missing one another), you’ll agree – this crazy techno world can be some kind of wonderful.